90 Days of Oscar Nominees #23 – Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Date: Author: Category: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1940's, 1942, 90 Days of Oscar Nominees, Academy Award Best Picture Nominee, Based on A True Story, Drama, MovieRob Premiere viewing, Music/Musical, Oscar worthy

In my attempt to have a more prolific repertoire of Oscar Nominated Films, I have taken it upon myself to watch 90 new Best Picture Nominees that I’ve never seen before between 5 Dec 2017 and The 90th Annual Oscars on 4 Mar 2018.

Here is my 23rd review of the 90 chosen Films…

–

“It seems it always happens. Whenever we get too high-hat and too sophisticated for flag-waving, some thug nation decides we’re a push-over all ready to be blackjacked. And it isn’t long before we’re looking up, mighty anxiously, to be sure the flag’s still waving over us. ” – George M. Cohan

Number of Times Seen – 1 (25 Dec 2017)

Brief Synopsis – Biography of the singer, songwriter and playwright George M. Cohan.

My Take on it – I’m not the biggest fan of musicals from the 30’s and 40’s and actually dreaded seeing this film.

I didn’t know anything about what it was about and was so pleasantly surprised at how patriotic and amazing this film was.

They do such a wonderful job touching upon so many powerful events in his life that gives us a great picture of what he went through during his life and career.

The musical numbers are extremely enjoyable to watch and the songs are so catchy, it’s hard not to keep humming them for days afterwards.

The only exposure that I’ve really had of James Cagney was in gangster roles and this was so refreshing to see how talented he was especially with his singing and dancing abilities.

Cagney won a Best Actor Oscar for this role and really deserved it.

The only minor flaw with this film is that I’m not sure if two hours was enough time to cover Ciohan’s life.

The story could easily have been expanded and still remain interesting.

Regardless, this is an amazing biographical film and I can’t wait to see it again soon!

Bottom Line – Amazing film that I can’t believe I never saw or even heard much about it beforehand besides it being a musical.  It does a wonderful job touching upon so many important and life changing events of the life of this pioneer.  The musical numbers are wonderful and not having been exposed to Cagney’s dancing and singing abilities beforehand, I was quite impressed with the final product.  Two hours is not really long enough to fully encompass all of the events of his life properly, but they still leave us with enough about this wonderful life. Can’t wait to see it again!  Highly Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Walking down the stairs at the White House, James Cagney goes into a tap dance. According to TCM, that was completely ad-libbed. (From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy

_______________________________________

Check out my *updated* movie stats here

To see my reviews of Oscar Winning Performances check out this link

To see my reviews of all Oscar Best Picture Winners click here (now complete)

Here is a link to my movie index A-Z